all the lost things
by fiesa
Summary: Voltron – Legendary Defender. There are so many of them floating through the soft darkness of space. OneShot- Lance, throughout season 5.


**all the lost things**

 _Summary: Voltron – Legendary Defender. There are so many of them floating through the soft darkness of space. OneShot- Lance, throughout season 5._

 _Warning: I am enjoying a cartoon series featuring giant lion mechas. I don't regret anything. Angst, friendship/family, gen, warning for language and general chronological messes._

 _Set: throughout season 5, part AU. Because – backstory. And S06, and stuff._

 _A/N: This has been on my harddrive for almost a year now. I'm throwing it out there, because if I don't do it now I'll never will. Technically, this was supposed to be a trilogy. The second part might make it. The third... We'll see, I guess._

* * *

When they'd been kids, Livia had forced Lance to watch the night sky with her.

He had, reluctantly, learned to name each star along with her. They'd spent nights in the tree house – a fancy name for a platform his dad had installed in one of the few trees in their garden, with three walls and a sun sail and not much more than all of their dreams – blinking up at the sky, counting and naming constellations. Whispering about their plans for the future. Lance's dreams had always been small, unlike Livia's: she had wanted to reach for the stars. Literally. She probably hadn't expected him to ever be closer to them than any human being had ever been, much less to be watching constellations that humans never even had _thought_ of that existed light-centuries away from their own, tiny galaxy.

She would have loved it, regardless.

Leaning back, Lance gazed outside through the viewport window, Red's soft purring in his mind the only sound in the all-encompassing silence of space. The red lion still felt alien, different than Blue. A bit less kind and deliberating, a bit more ready-to-pounce – for the lack of a better description. There was fire now where there had been calm waters before; at the beginning, it had scared him shitless. He'd always loved the ocean, the scent of it, the calming sound of the waves. Red was nothing like Blue: all hot temper and gut instinct and fiery, justified anger. And. The warmth of a fireplace in winter, the safety of a warm blanket placed over him by his mother. Lance would forever love the ocean; would forever be the Blue Paladin. _Chosen._ But only a tiny part of the huge lion would remember him when she chose another paladin, when she lived on centuries and millennia and mankind would be forgotten. Red had, willingly, taken him in, Blue had let him go, and Lance…

Lance was adjusting.

 _(Still, sometimes, he wondered how much of Red was as much his as he was hers, whether she accepted him because he had accepted Keith and it was her way of compromising. Whether Red still felt about her former paladin the way Lance felt about his former lion. The sensation was an odd, jagged ache somewhere in his chest.)_

"Lance, some help here!" Pidge's voice floated in over the com system, part aggravation, part exaggerated patience. "Maybe you could stop daydreaming for a moment and lend us a hand?"

Forcefully, Lance shut down every other thought.

"You need help? The Red Paladin and his lion mecha to the rescue! Make way for the legendary defender of the universe!"

Hunk's chuckle merged with Pidge's sigh, and Lance felt the corners of his lips twitch.

In the back of his mind, Red rumbled. Lance did the mental equivalent of an over-exaggerated double-take, feeling laughter settle in his stomach and aiming for a fake-hurt tone.

 _What, don't tell me you are as impervious to humor as your previous pilot. Because I don't know if this relationship will go anywhere in that case, if you know what I mean…_

Her answer was light and warmth, whisper and roar and song, a sensation of _something_ alien and soothing at the same time. Lance swallowed and felt something tug at the corners of his lips.

 _Okay, okay, calm down, Beauty, of course you are the main character in this story._

Chuckling softly, he shifted the levers, and the huge lion responded.

" _Lance,"_ Keith said, aggravation clear in his voice.

"Yes, oh mighty leader?"

"Shut up and get on with it."

"Of course, oh powerful chief."

The sigh that echoed over the comm was resigned and exasperated at the same time.

"I will drop this, and you will be the one who will do all the work from the beginning because I refuse to start all over and miss dinner over this," Pidge said, and he could see her frown even without seeing her.

"Aww, come on –"

"Guys," Shiro's voice came over the speakers, calm and conciliating as usual. "You're almost done. This is the last array that needs installing."

"On it," all four of them replied, almost in unison, and Lance chuckled to himself.

* * *

How long had they been out in space now?

At one point, he had stopped counting.

This was his life, now.

* * *

For dinner, Hunk made French fries.

Well, they _looked_ like French fries; shape and consistency and all. Except they were of a garish pink, with occasional blue dots. They _tasted_ like French fries, though, and everyone ate until they could barely move.

Coran regarded the long sticks on his fork with a suspicious expression.

"These remind me of the Gobbled Gobbeldidooks on Genoa! They had a ritual involving anything edible that was blue, and–"

Hunk snickered. "Gobbled Gobbeldidooks?"

"Just try it, Coran," Shiro said, lightly. Lance looked at him: he looked normal. Like Shiro _._ But he'd seen him, last night, when he'd stumbled out of his room, wanting to get a glass of water. He'd never entered the kitchen. The expression of the man sitting in the darkness had not been _Shiro_ : not the kind, calm man he'd gotten to know. But a dark version, twisted. _Haunted._ Lance had debated internally for about thirty ticks and had moved on, as quietly as he could. Keith would have known what to say, he was sure of, but he? Lance had no clue.

"It's actually pretty good," Pidge said. "How did you know what to look for, Hunk?"

The broad engineer shrugged. "Shay mentioned a vegetable they used to prepare something like gratin, and I thought I'd give it a try."

"That's a Thrapan fruit?" Allura gasped, dropping her fork. "Those are poisonous! Only the Balmerans know how to prepare it!"

"Calm down, Princess," Lance piped up. "The fruit may be poisonous, but the roots are edible when cooked!"

The glance she threw him was laced with mistrust. "If you say so."

Lance shoveled another fork of Space fries into his mouth. "Look? Not dead – Yowtch!"

One of the long fries had missed his mouth, and poked him in the eye.

At the other side of the table, he could see Keith: he was _almost_ laughing. It was worth the sting.

* * *

On some nights, when Lance couldn't sleep, he wandered.

The castle was huge. There was a ninety-nine-point-five percent chance that he went unnoticed, even though Pidge's, Hunk's and Shiro's sleep cycles were as messed up as his. Allura never appeared in the common room at night; Lance wasn't sure whether that meant she actually slept or she just didn't leave her room. Or – _did_ Alteans sleep, at all? So many questions.

Sometimes, his and Keith's paths crossed in the darkness.

Nights were… Quiet. There was something different in the tell-tale darkness of the Castle's pre-programmed resting period that, as unlikely as it seemed, smoothed out the differences they had during day. As if the ever-present darkness only managed to cover up all of Keith's impulsive, reckless aggressiveness and Lance's desperate, loud boisterousness when they both knew they weren't supposed to be there, were supposed to be asleep in their respective rooms. It was so much easier to just be _calm_ when it was only the darkness around the two of them, like the only living beings in the endlessness of space, easier to be _present_ when everything – everyone – else felt both farther away and closer.

(During day, it was easier to dazzle-slash-annoy people than to wait for them to discover your weaknesses and threaten you with them, the night stripped you bare, kinda.)

If Keith was there, he was in the training room.

 _Of course._

Lance had expected him to be training – the guy was really boring, or, if only, predictable – and had been surprised to find him just sitting there. And not only once. Each and every time Lance peeked into the training room and Keith was there he would be sitting on the ground, legs spread and hands open, his back leaning against the wall.

Looking up.

It had taken Lance two times to actually figure it out. The first time he fell silent and followed Keith's eyes he froze in surprise, because Keith wasn't just staring at the ceiling intently:

He was looking up at a projected night sky.

 _Orion. Cassiopeia. Sirius._

"What the actual _fuck._ "

Keith fixed a glance on him that was comically like Shiro's, something Lance hadn't seen before and that made him repeat himself.

"What the fuck?!"

That triggered Keith. "You can always leave."

Lance didn't.

He even came back.

It was quiet on those nights, like they didn't know what to say to each other. _Lance_ didn't know what to say. The first two times, he had done the talking, and Keith had listened, non-committal, and then Lance had left again. And after he'd come back they'd just sat there, quietly, because there was nothing to say.

Familiar constellations swirled in the darkness, and Lance fell into them, and fell and fell and _fell_. Familiar stars. A familiar pain in the hollow shell where his heart was supposed to be.

 _(Memories:_

Sitting on the flat roof of the tree house, a coarse blanket underneath them and the wood still warm from the summer sun, a soft breeze cooling their heated skin. The small, but bright camping lantern. A warm hand in his and the melody of a voice next to him.

Two hearts, beating as one.)

Drowning in those memories, on those nights, Lance just dropped to the cold, hard training room ground, drew his knees up to his chest and watched, and was very aware of Keith's presence on the other side of the room.

* * *

"Do you miss them?"

The rec room was quiet except for the soft beeping that emanated from the tablet Hunk was working on now and then. At Lance's question, he lifted his head.

"My mom and dad, you mean?"

While the question itself probably was telling enough, Lance wasn't sure anyone else would have picked up on his meaning as quickly as Hunk had. They'd been friends for so long he couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been there, the gentle kid with the huge hands that held everything – be it a bird with a broken wing or a lifeless piece of machinery – with a care that belied his strength. The only time Hunk had ever gotten into a fight with others had been when some bullies had bothered Lance. The many times Lance and Olivia had gotten into a fight had been whenever someone had bullied Hunk. Looking back, he was pretty sure teachers must have had a nickname for their trio –

With difficulty, Lance pulled himself out of his own memories.

"Yeah."

Hunk smiled, softly, his dark eyes wistful. "You know I do, buddy."

Allura was all poise and determination. A princess through and through, even when piloting Blue; sometimes Lance wondered, distantly, how it was possible that Blue had ever allowed him to become her paladin no matter how short it had been. But then, Blue was calm and cool calculation, and that, he knew, he could do. Allura, on the other hand… She, once in Blue's cockpit, tended to _react_ , all lightning-fast decisions and sharp edges and gut instincts. She might have been more suited for Red, if not for the fact that Red had refused her and had chosen him instead. It still made his head reel.

Pidge was rationality and detachment. Analytical, mathematical, she was what Lance thought might happen if a child prodigy grew up with an almost unhealthy sibling complex and an attachment to said sibling that went far beyond anything and – _oh. Pott, meet kettle._ And at that point, his thoughts usually fractured, because… _Because_. But Pidge was very much a young girl, her glowing eyes and contagious enthusiasm testament to how much and how deeply she cared, too. She was life and energy and curiosity and the threads that held them together, somehow or other.

Shiro was quiet leadership and subtle strength. He was their captain, their hero, their father figure and role model; Lance had caught each one of them, himself included, with something resembling awe, respect or sullenness on their faces following an encounter with him. Shiro _towered_ without being aloof _._ Shiro showed them the way and nudged them, the beacon in the darkness of this endless, soundless space. But his light… It was dimming. Lance could not explain it, could not even _think_ of any way why he felt it was that way. But still, it was something that was happening. Shiro was slipping, and there was nothing he could do to stop him.

Keith… was Keith.

And Hunk, finally: grounding earth and strong heart, ever-present, ever-loyal. Lance's best friend since he could remember. Sometimes, he woke up in cold sweat, the knowledge of what-could-have-been's, maybe's and what-if's burrowing into the depths of his chest, burning, unsaid, on the tip of his tongue until he wanted to scream, scream, _scream._ Hunk: solid rock, partner-in-crime, Hunk, who had stopped Lance from falling apart again and again and who was the best friend anyone could ever wish for. Yellow reflected him perfectly, he had always known that. Hunk, also, was the one who had adjusted to space best, in Lance's opinion. And that was… surprising, to say the least. On the other hand, he had a heart big enough to encompass the entire galaxy. Who would know that better than Lance?

The smile Hunk gave him, nevertheless, was bright. "Sometimes we're so busy I don't realize, and then something happens, like, we see a mother and her child among the refugees? Or I see some weird vegetables, and I think, Dad would love to see these, maybe I can bring him some seeds so he can grow them in the garden, and stuff, you know? And I keep wondering what my Mom would say if she saw the Castle and all the tech inside? She'd be _ecstatic–_ "

Lance grinned and adopted a high-pitched voice. "Oh, _Sweet Jesus,_ look at the dust in the shelves! Has nobody cleaned this place in _centuries_?"

Hunk bent over, laughing. "That doesn't sound like her at all!"

Lance dropped onto the ground next to his best friend. "But she would start cleaning."

"She would, and then she'd start disassembling every tablet to find out how it works." They shared a smile. "Your mom would cook."

"Don't remind me!" Pressing his hands to his stomach, Lance moaned, dramatically. "I feel like I haven't eaten anything remotely edible in ages! Years, even! Food goo for breakfast and food goo for lunch and would you like some goo for tea, by the way? Dinner's on its way! Guess what it is!"

Hunk grinned. "You could cook sometimes, you know. I don't know why you never do it. You like cooking; you and Livia used to –"

He cut himself off hastily.

Lance felt his smile dim and slip and quickly plastered on an even brighter one. "No, no, you keep that hungry masses fed. Between the two of us you always were better at it, anyway."

That was the problem with Hunk: he _knew_ Lance. Knew him to well. Had known him for long enough to know his history, his life, knew him well enough to not be fooled by his dramatics. Saw right through him. There was a thin line between truth and lies, between grief and happiness, and Hunk… He _was exactly_ aware of where it was _._ The glance he threw Lance, now, was deeply unimpressed. And full of sorrow. And Lance, instantly, hated himself for putting it there.

"Hunk-"

But Hunk shook his head, smiling his apology before Lance could stumble into anything that they both knew was both sincere and impossible.

"It's fine."

It probably wasn't, but Lance leaned against Hunk's sturdy shoulder gratefully, anyway, and closed his eyes.

It was fine, sometimes. Letting go. If it was Hunk, it was fine. But there were things _nobody_ knew, things Lance refused to think of it. So he plastered on a smile and turned up the volume, and just ran with it.

* * *

Sometimes it scared him: how easy it was to fool other people.

* * *

Speaking about fooling. Did Keith think Lance was a complete and utter idiot?

It was an obvious thing, glaring like a red light.

Keith was coming back later and later. Missing dinner. Missing team bonding exercises. Leaving them, when they had battles to fight. Disappearing early, excuses trailing off awkwardly, if he made it to dinner at all. Keith was just… being _not_ there.

Even when he was, it felt like he was only halfway present, or even less. It bothered Lance. During the day, he could ignore it; focus on other things. How they worked together better and better now, Red and Black, and all the other lions. How Allura learned to pilot Blue more and more accurately and never hung back anymore. How Pidge and Hunk were now silently deferring to Keith when it came to decisions, like they had accepted him as the leader of Voltron, like their initial doubts were smoothed out by his actions. Like Lance could, for times, accept he was in Red, not in Blue, and learned to fly as Keith's right hand and partner. Like Keith was doubting himself, less, despite Shiro's return.

During the night, it was impossible to ignore.

"I can see what you're doing."

His voice cut through the soft light of the stars – _Deneb in Cygnus, Altair in Aquila, Vega in Lyra_ – like a sword through a living thing.

Keith didn't even move, just transferred his gaze from the Summer Triangle above them to Lance. He looked – tired. As if the night had laid him bare.

"Come again?"

"I can see what you're doing," he repeated, even sharper than before.

Lance could, and it made him angry. It made him angry to a degree that he seriously contemplated the best ways to shoot the Red Paladin – former red paladin, the fuck, who cared – from behind, or how to best push him out of an airlock (never mind the fact that he still hated hated _hated_ ever getting close to one of those), or how to take him down in hand-to-hand combat. Problem: he couldn't just shoot a fellow paladin – a team member – and he couldn't just push him out of an airlock, and he fucking couldn't take him down, because, when it came to it, Keith and his fucking _Blade_ (yes, capital letters, what the actual fuck) were better than him when it came to sparring, hands down.

(Yet another thing in which Keith was better, aside from brooding, and piloting, and fighting, and intuition, and perhaps anything else.)

The problem was: Lance was angry by day.

But it took so much effort to be _there_ , to keep an eye on Shiro and make sure Hunk and Pidge were enjoying their time off and Allura didn't notice him reaching out for Blue, now and then, and to be _present_ and _alive_ and to simply _not fall apart_ , that he could not sustain the anger past daytime. Lance was exhausted at night, and the fact that he could not sleep did not help.

(He probably didn't look much different from Keith.)

So there was no anger left, not even enough to lace his words with blame. He just sounded tired, even to his own ears.

"I know what you're doing."

Keith sighed. It sounded as weary as Lance felt. And that, he thought, distantly, maybe was the reason why they were here, late at night, and were not fighting.

(Not that they fought much, these days. But – _yeah._ His point was valid, he guessed.)

"I'm not doing anything."

Lance leaned his head back against the wall with a dull thud and chuckled mirthlessly. "If you'd be a liar as good as you are at moping, you'd be pretty much perfect."

Keith was quiet, for a long time. Then, he shifted, drawing up his legs in a mirror of Lance's position and wrapping his arms around his own knees.

"I've thought about this."

Lance scoffed. "I'm not going to stoop low enough to rise to that bait."

Something flashed over Keith's features, something that was almost a smile. "Pity." He sobered again almost instantly. "But," he continued on. "It has to be done."

"Bullshit," Lance said, his voice bouncing off the walls and disappearing into the projected Terran night sky. "I have an idea what you're thinking about. And I can tell you it's bullshit."

"It's not, and you know it." Keith closed his eyes, opened them again and looked straight at Lance. "We need Shiro."

All the other things, he left unsaid. But Lance _knew._

 _Not like this,_ he wanted to scream, yell, _shout_. _Not at this cost._ But he knew where Keith was coming from, understood his reasoning.

"So you want to give Black back to him. Will he even accept Shiro back? What if he doesn't?" _And what will you do?_

"They'll get used to each other again," Keith said, ignoring Lance, ignoring the silence, ignoring the unspoken words dancing through the filtered, recycled air between them. _78.8% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide. Traces of other gases._ "The team needs Shiro. Shiro…" He hesitated, then continued on. "Shiro needs the team. Now more than anything."

 _What do you need, Keith?_

Keith was wrong, in a way. Voltron was not falling apart. Whether that was because they had learned to get along without Shiro, or because Keith was their leader now – who was Lance to say? He could only speak for himself. But Keith was right, too.

"Are you–" Lance stopped, took a deep breath. This felt so _personal._ Forbidden territory, despite the illusion of closeness the night brought with her. "Are you doing this because you still don't think you're a good leader?"

Keith was quiet for a long, long time. "Yes. And no."

 _So my – our – trust means nothing._

"But mostly because this needs to be done." Keith sounded… unsure. And Lance – Lance got it. In a way. In the same way he didn't get it. It was exhausting, and made him furious and cold and still at the same time.

"Shiro…" Keith's voice faded.

Lance carefully pondered his possible replies, and found there was nothing left to say. They understood each other. That in itself would have been strange enough a few months back, but now it felt… Familiar. Like they were rushing down a river, water wild and churning, knowing they were heading towards a waterfall – and resigned to their fate. He opened his mouth, closed it again. Opened it. Spoke the words with a familiar, heavy feeling in his chest.

"Shiro feels like he lost himself."

Keith shot him a tired smile, a flash of truth from underneath his heavy lashes, and that was it.

"Everyone is lost in space."

* * *

And then, just like that, he was gone.

* * *

"Paladins, I am so proud of you!"

Coran almost danced around the table, giddy with happiness.

"You were _marvelous_ today!"

With Shiro as their leader, as the head of Voltron, they had secured another base in their fight against the Galran Empire, had successfully raided a Galran cruiser and had gained new allies in their fight, as the inhabitants of the planet Hittala had decided to join the Alliance after witnessing Voltron's power with their own eyes. Everything had gone off without a hitch; Pidge, cloaked, laying out mines, Hunk, with Matt's help, hacking into the Galran inter-ship communications, Allura and Shiro leading the raid and Lance providing overwatch. They had returned to the Castle of Lions as giddy as Coran still was, high on adrenaline and battle-weariness.

And while Lance could see that they would all crash, eventually, he was too hyped up to care.

(During these moments, he almost – _almost –_ managed to forget.)

"To Voltron!"

"To Voltron!" They all echoed and downed the contents of their cups, and Pidge spluttered and exploded into a serious coughing fit.

"Quiznak! What _is_ this?"

Allura's face was taking on a beautiful blush.

"Coran, did you –"

The steward-cum-quartermaster-cum-chief-of-staff smacked his lips. "I certainly haven't, Princess. I thought you had opened up a bottle?"

Hunk was sampling the contents of his cup. "Hm, a bit like tequila, but sweeter, and…"

Pidge took another, tentative sip. "It's not that bad, actually."

"Wait." Shiro glanced at her. "You're underage!"

"I am piloting a huge robo-lion, blowing up cat-like aliens on a daily basis," the tech queen answered, calm as ice, but there was a tilt to her voice that was unmistakable. "I do not think legal drinking age is anything that concerns us. Besides, Allura and Coran aside, who are a few millennia old, and you, none of us is twenty-one yet."

She downed the beverage in one go, slamming her cup back onto the table. "Give me another one!"

Lance snickered into his cup. On the other side of the table, Hunk was appreciatively sniffing the remaining contents of the bottle, while, around them, the conversation continued to flow. Hunk held his liquor well, he knew. They'd come a long way from the kids that had stolen their parents' beer one day and had tried it, behind the garden shed. Hunk had spewed it out, pronouncing it gross. Olivia had tried a second sip and then scrambled to find something else to clear away the aftertaste. Lance had spluttered, his face twisting, and grabbed Hunk's hand, and off they went after Livia–

Keith probably couldn't hold his liquor, like, _at all_ – or he'd be annoyingly, aggravatingly, good at it, because, _of course,_ he was Keith-too-cool-for-you and he probably–

Lance excused himself, making a big show of needing to go to the restroom.

Made it into the next one. Collapsed on the cold tiles, suddenly empty and sick for no apparent reason and for every single reason in the whole universe.

* * *

The trouble was: once everyone else had settled down for the night, Lance was still there.

 _(_ Keith _wasn't.)_

That was the first thing. The second was harder to grasp. With Shiro as their returned captain and leader, they were making serious headway, convincing so-far undecided planets to join the Alliance, taking out Galra supply lines, even whole bases. They were far from winning the war – even with Lotor on their side, whom, to be serious, here, nobody was supposed to trust and hopefully nobody did – but they were closer than they had ever been.

They had made it there because of Shiro, too, because the Black Paladin was back in the Black Lion.

But for some reason Lance couldn't fathom – didn't _want_ to, if he was honest – he resented it.

 _Ah, screw you._

Of course the reason was clear, always had been.

 _Bastard._

The training room reverberated with the quick staccato of shots, fired with cold and calm precision. Training robot after robot dropped to the ground, short-circuited after being hit by Lance's sniper rifle.

Two robots teamed up – Pidge must have modified them, either neglecting to tell him because it was supposed to be a surprise, or she had simply forgotten – and ambushed him from behind.

Lance calculated their trajectory in his mind, sorted through the most possible attack patterns, and squeezed the trigger.

The robots went down with a whine and a soft thud. _Six to go._ He ducked under the whirring laser fire of another drone, whirled and retaliated.

 _Five._

His mind was calm. This was, he supposed, why he preferred the rifle to Hunk's bulky blaster, to Pidge's taser-slash-electric whip or Keith's blade. Not that he was necessarily bad in hand-to-hand combat; in fact, he enjoyed it as a means of calming his mind, as well. But the cool action of focusing on an enemy, the almost hypnotizing flow of numbers and possible eventualities centered him in a way few things ever had been able to.

Keith had probably known, because he had never ribbed him about it.

 _Bastard._

Robo-drones four and three dropped, out of commission.

 _Fucking bastard._

Pidge's glaring was almost physically painful when Lance, at breakfast the next day, asked her for new drones.

"Again? Really?"

Lance shrugged, and launched into a speech of how heroes needed to train in order to be able to save those in need, and, as usual, nobody listened. He thought that maybe Shiro might have pulled him aside after breakfast, but nothing happened. Either way, Shiro wouldn't understand, wouldn't have been able to even before he disappeared again. Hunk had often tried to, but never actually managed, there was a difference between _knowing_ and _understanding_ , and despite it seeming so small it actually was larger than the world. Pidge had her own load to carry, and did so so differently that _Lance_ was baffled at how she did it. And Allura – well, he couldn't expect an ancient princess who had lost her entire civilization to understand a boy from Earth, could he? Nobody could understand. He didn't want anyone to. Nobody could know–

 _Keith had._

Keith, that bastard, had known exactly that the only way to ground Shiro would be to give up Black to him _(he should probably say "return Black", but couldn't bring it over himself)_. And, being the bastard he was, he had also known exactly what he needed to do in order to get _Shiro_ back.

Lance just hated the cost at which that had been achieved.

* * *

Three days before they were supposed to attack Naxzela – an all-out attack, all or nothing, go big or go home – an alarm blared through the Castle.

Seven Minutes – approximately twelve ticks – later, Lance was in Red's cockpit, a soft, anticipating purr in the back of his head and his fingers wrapped around her controls. Pidge, on one of the many screens, was updating them on the sensor scans, a steady stream of commentary in the back of Lance's head. Hunk and Yellow were at his side, with Allura not far behind them. Without wanting to, Lance reached out – _calm and blue and steady, soft waves lapping at the beach and yet so powerful._ Blue didn't sense him, occupied by more important things than home-sick former paladins, and Lance yearned for her warmth, her reassurance before a fight. _Calm, little one._ Blue's patience had been kindness to a lost boy in the middle of a sea of stars, and especially when he had no idea what was to come he felt himself reach out in search for her. Blue had always–

Red growled, angrily, and Lance shrank back guiltily.

 _Ah, yes._

Apologized, and felt her momentary huff of annoyance fade to something… _softer._ She didn't understand, not completely. But she _tried_ , and that knowledge was soothing in itself. As if she was saying, _Get used to it already, dumbass,_ but there was no hatred in her voice, no anger. To Lance, her voice sounded painfully like Keith's.

Red's growl mixed with the same undecipherable, aching sensation Lance felt twisting in his chest, and he wondered –

"Oh, no," he heard Hunk's voice, full of foreboding.

Lance started in Red's pilot chair and looked, and _saw._ His heart dropped.

"What the _fuck_!"

Everything froze. Everyone. It felt like even the mechas held their breath.

"Shiro?" Allura asked, after what felt like an eternity. Her usually strong, clear voice was gravelly. "Are you alright?"

Silence answered, awkward and grating.

Lance held his breath, and so did the others.

Finally, Shiro answered, with a mix of embarrassment and guilt that should have felt familiar to them, but to Lance just sounded fake. "Um. Sorry about that, guys. I guess – I was surprised."

Pidge laughed, too-short, choked. "Damn. You had me there."

"Yeah, man," Hunk agreed. "I thought, for a second, that you'd turned into a Galra or something."

They all laughed, awkwardness thick and choking.

"Anyway," Lance said when he couldn't stand it anymore. "I guess this was a false alarm, then?"

"Yeah," Shiro agreed. "Let's get back to the Castle. And someone contact those guys out there? They'd better not do that again."

"I will do so immediately," Coran's voice said, disembodied but so clearly _Coran_ that Lance almost grinned. _Almost._

In the darkness of space outside the Castle of Lions, a few Olkarians continued something that vaguely resembled cliff-diving from the highest tower of the castle ship, spinning loose on long ropes and reeling themselves in again. When the lions passed by, they waved enthusiastically.

* * *

Naxzela was an utter triumph and a complete fuck-up, at the same time.

Lance thought they all agreed. But this was, like, just another thing they did not talk about. They would have, once upon a time, when Shiro was their leader and Allura their princess and Keith the red paladin, and they were light centuries away from home and very much trying to forget that. _Oh, the good old days._ And Lance couldn't have said if anything would have changed if they had been the same as then – whether Blue would have found a way to save them all, whether they would have managed to dismantle the trap that Naxzela had become for the lions and the galaxy; whether they'd have gotten away alive. As it was, it was a fuck-up on a major scale, _shit-hit-the-fan-the-size-of-a-Galra-cruiser_ , and they just managed to survive due to a very, very questionable, incredibly lucky string of coincidences.

And Lotor.

Lance couldn't remember ever hating anyone as much as he disliked the Galran prince, except, perhaps, for his father.

 _Red paladin,_ Red whispered, in his head, and Lance reacted with so much force his mind felt like it was imploding. _No._ He never had _hated_ Keith. Had disliked him, yes. Been uncomfortable around him. Envied him, yes. But hated – no.

 _Why are you telling me? Tell him._

Lance shivered, and drew up a wall between himself and Red. She waltzed it down immediately, but his point stood. Blue's consciousness shimmered in the distance, like a lake: _there_ , and deceptively close. But so far away. Red growled, questioningly, something else bled through their connection, something Lance couldn't decipher. He pushed it away for now.

Naxzela. Haggar. Allura. Lotor. Shiro.

He'd messed up, and badly. If he had only thought about it more closely – if he'd listened to his gut, if he'd reacted faster – maybe none of it would have happened?

It had been pure instinct.

 _Blue!_

And Blue hadn't reacted.

He'd seen Allura instead, a blazing presence, so bright it almost had blinded his senses. A conscious so _alien_ it had taken away his breath: age and wisdom and strength and weakness, calm and impatience, instinct and calculation. And those were only the things he knew, and could decipher: there was more, strange, unnamable things that made his teeth ache and his fists curl and his heart bleed. A living, shining girl for a dead civilization. A power within, still shadowed and half-hidden, and yet it was humming for acknowledgement, vibrating in pure, sheer energy–

Lance had called out before he knew what he was doing.

"Allura! You can do it!"

And, of course, she could.

* * *

Only Lance seemed to consider their last encounter with the Galra as a failure, however, because everyone else celebrated.

Like, _massively._

The party lasted two days and two nights; the castle was full of aliens, humanoid or not. Coran broke out the expensive drinks. Everybody brought food. There were speeches by the rebel leaders and speeches by the leaders of almost every planet that was a member of the Alliance, speeches by people from planets who wanted to join the Alliance and then there were more speeches. Food and music and dance and conversation: Lance had the sickening feeling he was supposed to enjoy it all.

He didn't, not really. But he couldn't just stand around moping, could he? Lance plastered on his brightest, most charming smile, put on his ridiculousness and mingled.

After some time, he wound up at the buffet, right next to Matt.

"What _is_ that?" The elder Holt sibling mused, pensively, regarding bright yellow pieces of _something_ on a stick that looked like someone had taken a sponge and deep-fried it.

"Hi Matt," Lance greeted, cheerily plucking something or other from a large bowl of what looked like fruit and not really caring for it. "How's it going?"

"Good, good, thanks!" Matt's eyes flashed in the same way Pidge's did, and Lance– "Pidge told me what happened on Naxzela. I'm so glad you guys made it back unharmed!"

"Hey, same here!" Lance said, brightly. "But I wasn't really worried. I knew you'd come back, because otherwise Pidge would kill you!"

"Hahaha," Matt said, smiling brightly and embarrassed. "Please don't joke about that!"

"Well, we all know Pidge, so you know it's one hundred percent plausible. Once, when Keith –" Lance stopped, awkwardly. "You don't know Keith."

Matt's face was glowing. "Actually, I do! I met him on the rebel alliance ship before Lotor fired on Haggar's ship. Right before we heard you were trapped–"

His voice trailed off, suddenly awkward.

"What?" Lance asked, suspicious.

"He…" Matt stalled. "He recognized me?"

"That's not what you wanted to say."

"Ha, ha, was it not?" Matt scratched the back of his head, a gesture oddly familiar. Was it Pidge, or Shiro? Lance had no idea, and, right now, was focusing on Matt completely, a dull sensation of foreboding thick in his throat. "He just – he saw what was happening, and he was really worried about you guys–"

" _What happened,_ Matt?"

The scientist-and-rebel sobered. "Damn. I promised him not to tell anyone."

" _Matt._ "

"Alright, alright." Lifting his hands in the universal _don't-blame-me_ gesture, he looked at Lance, the silly jokester forgotten. This, Lance thought with startling clarity, was the man who had survived his abduction and consequent torture by a cruel alien race, who had lost his best friend and his father and yet had continued on, never once giving up. "When Keith saw you were trapped down there, he jumped into a fighter. I guess he wanted to… I dunno… Crash into Haggar's shield?"

Lance barely heard his own answer over the rush of his own blood – and Red's roar of hurt and anger – in his ears.

* * *

But then, of course, Keith was still with the Blade of Marmora, and Lance's anger had nowhere to go.

In the back of his mind, Red's fire and anger were as vivid as his own.

* * *

He had tried to kill himself.

Tried to _sacrifice_ himself. For _them._

The fucking idiot had gone and almost got himself killed, idiotic and ridiculous and so utterly and completely _selfish_.

Lance's nails left dark-red crescents in his palms.

What had Keith been thinking, trying to bring down a shielded Galra cruiser all by himself and a tiny Galran fighter?

He was so angry he couldn't even muster the imagination for the appropriate curses.

* * *

And then.

 _Then._

An Altean broadsword.

A _fucking_ Altean _broadsword._

Lance's glance flew over the wrecked robots on the ground, to the door Allura had just left through, to the sword that was back in his hands as if it belonged to him, was part of him and always would be. It already _felt_ like a part of him.

Different than his rifle had felt, and yet the same.

A _fucking Altean broadsword._

Lance had never been a close-combat fighter. He'd trained with guns at the Garrison, and he'd been relieved when Keith had taken up the task of slicing up enemies for them, alternating the quest with Shiro and the huge, two-sided _whatever_ Black carried around in his maw. Lance was a _leg,_ for fuck's sake: he stood. He maybe kicked. He diverted, and flew, and ran. He shot things _(Galra)_ from the distance.

He _did not fight with swords._

Red and his bayard seemed to think otherwise.

 _Fuck._

Flexing his hand, he returned the sword to the familiar shape of his bayard. Then he closed his eyes, envisioned his sniper rifle: sleek lines, the exact weight of the loaded rifle, its scope. A weapon the way he preferred it, lethal and yet functional. The feeling of his hands curving around it, his finger on the trigger–

The sword formed, sleek lines that were nothing like his blaster, deceptively light despite the size. Beautiful, in an abstract, _weird_ way. But. _Not_ his rifle. _Definitely_ not.

"Fuck," Lance cursed, again.

In the back of his mind, Red growled.

 _Language, cub._

Umm, yeah. So maybe that was his imagination.

* * *

Red was right. He needed to chill.

There were other things he had to worry about, right now. Like, they couldn't trust Lotor.

But, as in every good story – hey, they were the Heroes of the Universe, after all – it was the only chance they had. Shiro had been right: they had needed to act, and quickly. Even Allura had seen reason, in the end. Red had roared out their determination as the rest of the lions had flown in to save their leader, and Lance had – Lance had roared with her. The part of him that was frozen, even after all these years, had not changed. But he'd gotten better hiding it.

And – Lotor. Taking them with him right into the heart of the Galran Empire, Emperor or not, was insanity.

Shiro and Allura agreed, for once. Lance was fiercely glad, and, for the first time, managed to push away the memory of Shiro shouting at him. Shiro and Coran marched off to synch databases, or whatever. Allura and Lotor disappeared (and if _that_ wasn't sketchy in itself).

Pidge, Hunk and Lance were given an all-clear.

They used it.

The re-programmed Sentinel robot exploded in a firework of colors.

"That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Pidge whispered, awe-struck. Hunk could only nod.

Lance thought that keeping up appearances had been _worth_ it, every _fucking single minute_.

He pointedly ignored the small stab of _something_ somewhere in his chest.

* * *

"Again? Lance, when will you finally get into your over-blown head that the universe does not revolve around you and your planet-sized ego?"

There was humor, and there was _humor._

Shiro was not himself, hadn't been for quite some time. Nobody seemed to wonder, to even notice.

Lance… Lance worried.

Of course, the Black Paladin apologized afterwards, as he had the last time he had blown up at Lance. His smile was tiny, but honest. _We're all stressed,_ Lance could read in his eyes. _I didn't mean it._ So he smiled, and nodded.

But it wasn't that easy.

Shiro was their Captain. Shiro was their leader. Shiro had never, ever, said anything that would hurt any member of the team, not when he was angry, not when he was desperate and racing to save the galaxy.

He'd never deliberately targeted the team's deepest fears and insecurities, even if he, Lance was quite sure, knew about them.

Shiro had always known the line.

Besides.

It wasn't as if Lance was doing this for the laughs.

In the small piece of his mind that was reserved for his bond to his lion, Red shook her mane like a wet cat. Her snout nudged him, her strength carefully modulated, the soft purr in her chest vibrating through him like a freighter backfiring.

 _I chose you, blue cub._

Her approval was desert heat and battle instinct and pride, unfamiliar things – and yet, soothing.

 _Thank you,_ Lance thought back, gratefully.

* * *

Nights had never been this long before.

The castle was asleep along with its occupants, and Lance was awake. The silence around him was both grating and grateful, filled him up until it was the only thing he could breathe.

It was so difficult, staying angry.

It was so easy, losing oneself.

Lance was full of things he couldn't have, and empty.

* * *

"Dad will be going back," Pidge said, one afternoon, refusing to lift her arm off her eyes. Her voice was thick with conflict and emotion. "He already talked to Allura. He's going back to Earth."

Something in Lance froze.

"Oh, Pidge," Hunk said, Hunk, who always found the right words. "And you've only just found him."

"Yeah." Pidge's voice sounded thick, full of tears. It was something Lance couldn't reconcile: Pidge, always so strong, so _alive._ And – tears. "But, you know what? It's _enough._ He's alive. I never thought I'd see him again, and I did. He has to go back. Mom has been waiting for too long. It's enough – enough that he's alive."

Hunk wrapped her into a hug, and she laughed, watery. "I can't breathe, Hunk."

He didn't let go of her, anyway.

* * *

Lance started the message to his family sixteen-and-a-half times, the half-attempt being one during which he dropped his head onto the communication console after the greeting and accidentally deleted the message.

Anyways.

 _Dear Mom, I hope you are well. I am in outer space, light-centuries away from earth._

 _Dear family, I bet you have missed me like crazy._

 _Dear all, how's it going?_

 _Livia –_

He never got farther than that.

The whole team seemed sullen and somewhat homesick after their own, allotted time at the com. Thinking of home brought it back, Lance thought, and no matter how much the Castle of Lions and the team had become his comfort and his somewhat-home and almost-family, it still. Wasn't. Wasn't _home_ in the sense of family and warmth and memories and sorrow, the familiar, heart-clenching sensation at the sight of Olivia's stuff, Marco's football shoes on the ground, Louis' stuffed animals. Shiro was a great role model and almost-dad – if he was with them, mind – and that aside, Lance had never missed a father figure in his life. Coran was like Uncle Alfonso, loud and boisterous and overly excitable. Pidge and Allura were like cousins, like Alexandra and Manuela and Maria, a bit aloof and distant due to the fact that they were three years older, annoying and overly touchy but ultimately family; and _loved_. Hunk was his best friend, regardless. Keith…

He shut down that thought.

In the end, Lance recorded two lines, saved the message on the chip and sealed the envelope, and if his hand trembled when he wrote down the name nobody saw.

He almost forgot to fake it, when they gathered to see Pidge's dad off, the memories returning hard and cruel. But at this point probably nobody suspected anything anymore, and they were too busy saying good bye, anyway.

* * *

How could a person ever stop missing the absence of oneself?

* * *

Pidge was in their rec room when he entered, some time after Sam Holt's shuttle had disappeared from their sensors, fiddling with her makeshift laptop.

Lance took the game console controller and began the arduous preparations of powering it up, watching one light after another blink up in the weird assortment of connections Hunk and Pidge had plugged together in order to gain a functional apparatus.

He started the game and proceeded to lose, spectacularly.

Pidge ambled over after the second time, twitching annoyingly every time he did something apparently overly stupid. When he went game over the fourth time, she held out her hand, demandingly.

"My turn."

He relinquished the controller, complaining just enough to keep up appearances, and watched her maneuver the character through the two-dimensional landscape with nimble fingers.

"Hey. You have a family, don't you."

At the sudden interruption, Lance almost started. "Huh?"

Pidge didn't once take her eyes off the screen. "I mean," she mumbled, awkwardly. Coughed once. Her character jumped on an opponent, once, twice. A shower of gold coins, and on she went. "I have my mom and dad, and Matt. And I knew Matt and Dad were out there, and that I had to save them. So I focused on that. Between fighting the Galra and building the Alliance, there isn't much space for anything else, was there? So I only realized how much I missed them after I saw them again. How much I miss Mum. She must have thought I died, disappeared, like Dad and Matt. She must have thought she lost us all."

Pidge was… Pidge. Absorbed in her little, impenetrable tech bubble, forgetting the world. Speaking four different programming languages, her mind running light-years a tick. Lance could try and try as he might, he'd never catch up; if he was honest, he did not want to. Hunk was the one who kept up with Pidge _and_ with Lance, and that was a miracle in itself. But then, sometimes, he was reminded that she was a girl, and the youngest one of them.

"It's okay," he told her, softly. "They're safe. Your father is on his way back. He'll tell your Mom you're alright. And Matt survived all this time. He'll be fine."

"I know," she said, angrily, beating up tortoises. "I know. I got to see them again, Zarkon is dead and the Alliance is doing fine. We're doing fine. I'm glad. It's not about that."

"What is it about?"

Her voice quieted. "I never realized how much I missed them until I saw them again. Does that make sense?"

Lance, somewhat an expert when it came to missing people, nodded. "Yes."

"I mean, I got to see Dad and Matt again, and I know Mom will be alright, once Dad is back. And Matt is here." She swallowed, and Lance – yeah. He missed Livia with an intensity that was crippling. "I guess, what I want to say is… I never thought about… Lance, you have a family back on Earth, too, right?"

There were various ways to answer this, Lance thought, swallowing past the pressure and the vile taste of _absence_ in his throat. Let it, for a second, for the fraction of a heartbeat, fill it up: darkness and sorrow, grief and _longing_ so wordless and earth-shattering that it felt like his body would be unable to contain it. But whenever he thought it had reached maximum capacity, something within him _expanded_. There was always room for darkness.

Lance reached out and tousled Pidge's hair, soft under his fingers, and, from somewhere and with the strength of years of training, laughed.

"What's that? Of course I have a family! Even Keith, ultimate loner, has one, I've seen them. And you are my family, too, Shiro and Allura and Coran and Hunk, all of you. We're incredibly lucky to have such large families, actually, aren't we?"

Pidge's hands clenched around the controller. "But I got to see Matt and Dad…"

Lance interrupted her gently. "And we got to send our family messages because you never gave up on yours. Your father will be delivering news to many people back there, and I'm pretty sure those tapes will be received far more happily than the news he will bring that there are aliens and galaxies out here. Don't feel bad for us, Pidge. Everyone will tell you not to."

Her fingers clenched and relaxed, her entire insecurity glaringly obvious in one, small gesture. Finally, she sighed.

"Okay."

Lance messed up her hair again and this time, she glared at him.

"Stop doing that or I'll re-route the power in your shower to more important systems!"

"Woah, woah, hold your horses!" Lance snapped both hands into the air. "Can we discuss this again?"

"Idiot," Pidge mumbled, and went back to beating the shit out of his high-score.

Lance smiled.

* * *

The kitchen was empty.

What had he expected? It was past midnight, or, past what passed for midnight in the Castle of Lions. Sometimes, he wasn't sure it had been a good idea to incorporate the Altean time system into their daily schedules. It felt like they had given up even the last vestiges of Earth they had still carried with them.

One definite advantage of getting around as much as they did these days was the fact that they met so many different cultures and species. It always was a gamble – one type of nut-like fruits had Coran literally spitting fire for one afternoon, what Allura had referred to as a common Altean allergy. Another had given all humans purple spots for a week. But as with Hunk's space fries, now and then they discovered some food that was able to seriously improve their usual food goo meals to something…

Almost enjoyable.

Usually, it was Hunk who experimented with food, the kitchen being his second-favorite place after the … lab? Lance wasn't quite sure as to how to refer to Team Plunk's tech cave. But the training room was empty and cold, and his room too small. And the kitchen smelled like soap and the weird, chocolate-like fruit their latest allies had provided them with, and what Pidge lovingly referred to as night lights were softer than the usual daily, almost glacial lighting.

The weird fruit were red and had a soft skin, a bit like peaches.

Lance looked at them for a long time.

Keith had, one night and very off-handedly, mentioned he liked brownies.

Livia had –

Work was the best medicine when it came to shaking off ghosts. It treated the symptoms, at best, but. At least it did _something._

Lance reached for a bowl.

* * *

"This is amazing!"

Allura's eyes were shining. Coran was speechless, staring at the piece of cake in his hands, and that, Lance thought, was a feat in itself.

Pidge wolfed down the brownies like a starving teenager.

"Lance, we never knew you could bake!"

Lance shrugged. "Not really."

Hunk's eyes on him were soft.

* * *

When Lance closed his eyes, he could see the smile.

* * *

Sometimes, time seemed to expand, days and days passing in relative peace.

Diplomatic events. A few more shows.

And then: a sudden shift in priorities, a new task. Restless preparations and sleepless nights, only to then be confined to the command center of the Castle, waiting.

 _Waiting._

There was little Lance hated more, and – _Wait._ When had that happened?

In the back of his mind, Red seemed to chuckle. _You're getting there, cub, aren't you?_ Lance crossed his arms, mentally, dragging up his nose. _Never._

The ocean that was Blue's conscience glittered in the distance, so close and yet unreachably far away.

Allura and Lotor were off, having jumped head-first into a white hole on their quest to find a mythical country of legends and Altean alchemy.

Coran, Hunk and Pidge were desperately trying to get the Castle of Lions back online.

Shiro was strategizing.

Matt was busy incorporating the outer-most resistance cells into the new alliance, out there in the depths of the galaxy somewhere.

Keith was off with the Blade of Marmora, saving the universe, assumedly, or whatever other stuff the order did when nobody was watching.

Lance was _angry_.

Lance was angry at Keith for leaving and at Shiro for _not_ being Shiro. At Allura, for being chosen by Red. At Pidge, because she had gotten to see her dad and Matt. At Hunk, even, for being _Hunk_ , all kind and protective and ready for Lance to lean on, because that was what Hunk did and because Lance was fucking weak he broke down every time. In consequence, Hunk knew all about him, every dark, every ugly side, and that made Lance angry, too: because Hunk didn't deserve to have to deal with his shit, again and again. So, actually, most of it was that Lance was angry and tired and so fucking fed up with himself. Lance was angry, and, right now, he was useless, drowning in his own inability.

 _Breathe, cub._

Red's conscience pressed against his, hot and fiery. _No point in losing yourself._ Something bubbled in the back of her presence, something – not familiar, not yet. But something Lance could feel, could _emphasize_ with. It did not exactly feel soothing, but…

With a start, he _understood._ It felt like taking a breath after being submerged for a far too long time.

Shiro's shoulders were so rigid it was painful to watch. "I don't feel like myself."

And Lance, forever and ever, would hate himself for what he said next, would blame himself unto eternity for doing what he did. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen, or his nagging worry for the absent parts of their family, for Allura, for Lotor, even. His anger and exhaustion. _Keith._ Maybe it was that tiny, fragile connection that had formed in the back of his mind, a plant that needed care, and time, to grow into something fully-formed. Maybe, maybe… Whatever it was, he could see clearly when looking back, nevertheless had been the beginning of the end.

"Maybe it's the lack of oxygen. You should sit down, Shiro."

And that was that.

* * *

Mission.

Lance was aware he had somewhat been bumped up to second-in-command of Voltron after Keith had taken over Black. But with Shiro back in command, it seemed unnecessary. Like he was only holding the place for a person that had been with them, and now was gone. Lance had no intention to be a replacement for Keith, even if he was piloting Red.

Allura did the job well enough, and her rapport with Blue was strong.

Proof for the fact that Shiro did well enough with Allura backing him up – no lapses today, which relieved Lance and increased his terror, because, _when_ –

(And when had it become _when_ instead of _if_?)

Anyway, everything had gone well, Pidge and Matt had celebrated an impromptu party after their return because apparently they had to do this whenever they met, no matter how long they hadn't seen each other. Hunk had made dinner and Lance had made dessert. Focusing on the complex task of preparing the lava chocolate tartlets had demanded enough of his attention to make him temporarily push aside his worries.

"Who set the table?" Shiro asked, off-handedly, in the middle of a conversation with Coran.

"Lance," Hunk replied, juggling hot pans and the gloves they used instead of real oven-mitts.

"There's one set too much."

"Hand me the spoon, please, will you?" Pidge called over, and everything continued on its normal course.

Nobody even noticed Lance freezing for a solid three ticks.

 _Yeah, well._

"Pasta!" Matt exclaimed, entering the kitchen, his hair still wet from the shower. His sister latched onto him, chattering excitedly. Allura eyed the meatballs, while Coran dipped a finger into the sauce to try and launched into a long, excited story of how Alteans prepared meals when Hunk batted him aside with a spoon.

Lance unfroze himself with a burst of strength and laughed at Matt and Pidge's account of how their father had once blown up a pot of pasta, coloring the ceiling of their kitchen in red stains permanently, and.

Everything was fine.

* * *

"Woah."

Hunk stepped over the ruins of one or five robots – who counted, anyway – and eyed the wreckage of the training room with critical eyes.

His glance fell onto Lance and his eyes widened, comically.

"Lance? I thought – Keith – _What are you_ _doing_?"

Lance leaned onto his sword, heavily panting, and barely managed a shrug. "Training?"

"Looks like you slaughtered an entire army of those."

In the corner, a robot beeped and sparked, then collapsed in a metallic clatter; dead.

"I'm still getting used to this."

Lance waved at his blade casually, and Hunk nodded.

"Ah."

Of course he knew. Allura must have told them, because Lance hadn't, for sure. He felt a slight twinge of guilt.

He shifted, uncomfortable. Opened his mouth under Hunk's scrutinizing gaze, closed it again. Shrugged, finally, because anything else failed. "Sorry, man."

Hunk's eyes softened. _Apology accepted._ Friends that got you without you needing to say anything in explanation: worth more than anything else in the galaxy.

"How is it?"

"See for yourself." Lance, feeling a bone-deep relief that made him forget his exhaustion, handed over the blade. Hunk took it and almost dropped it.

"Hey, careful there!"

"Sorry." His friend grasped the sword again, tighter this time. "The weight… It's heavy."

"Is it?" Lance hadn't thought of it that way, before. Allura, too, had disarmed him without apparent struggle. But then, she was Altean.

(Again. So many questions.)

"Pretty sharp, too." Hunk admired the blade, eyed every inch of it. "Why do you think your bayard changed?"

"Honestly?" Lance walked to the side of the room, studiously ignoring the too-large amount of training bots littering his path. "I have no idea. I'd prefer my rifle."

Red growled; reprimanding, impatient.

 _I know, Beauty. We'll get there, I promise._

Hunk shrugged.

"Seems like the Red Lion had other plans."

"Doesn't everyone," Lance muttered, and did a mental equivalent of patting a cat's head. Red felt like she was laughing – but her frustration was there, too. It wasn't directed towards him but rather merged with his; it was a familiar thing that changed and ebbed and flowed between them, back and forth. It drew them together: the worry for those they considered precious, the fear of losing them. Red and Lance loved the same things.

Blue and Lance had loved the same things, too. Maybe this was why this worked at all?

There: another splinter, another puzzle piece of something he could almost, but _not quite_ , grasp.

Hunk threw an arm over his shoulder. "Come on. This is cool, isn't it? An Altean broadsword! Allura said the last one to fight with it was a hero who was famous throughout the entire universe!"

"Hero, huh?" Lance perked up. "That sounds like me!"

Hunk's quick glance made him deflate. Lance sighed. "Ah, yes. I promised, I know. Sorry."

The yellow paladin's eyes were sad. "You don't have to do this, Lance."

 _Yes, I do._

Red purred. It was a sensation like being tossed through the waves, carried forward with the raw force of the current – and yet, of being completely safe. In return, Lance sent her calm: sunshine on a hot summer afternoon at the beach, the joy of racing around the block on bikes, wind in their faces, two in one.

Lance grinned. "Do what?"

The silence between them was familiar, thank fuck, and Lance knew that, even if Hunk disapproved, he still did not hate him for it. He was incredibly glad for that.

 _Language, Lancie._

(His conscience still sounded like Livia.)

"So how's training going?" Hunk asked, his silent acceptance making Lance feel warm and safe.

"Dunno. I've never worked with a blade like this before. I mean, the bayard does heaps of the work, I just have to move with it. But still. I get the feeling there's something I'm missing."

"You'd probably benefit from a stay with the Blade of Marmora, too," Hunk suggested, grinning.

The joke fell _thump_ into the murky depths of Lance's heart, sank and catapulted itself back towards the surface of the rapidly forming ice, broke the surface in a shattering sound. Reared its ugly head and roared; demanding, desperate. He stomped down on it ruthlessly.

"Are you kidding me? Keith might need the extra training, but me? You'll see, Red and I will be ready the next time."

"I could check the Galran database," Hunk offered. "See if I can find some data to program the robots with."

"That sounds good," Lance said, grateful. "Thanks, Hunk."

"Anytime."

Still, back in his room, after a mind-numbingly cold shower and exhausted to the point that he was unable to sleep, Lance still could not stop thinking.

It was going to be one of those nights.

* * *

The training room was dark and empty.

Someone had cleaned up. Maybe Hunk. Maybe some of the cleaning robots.

Lance cowered down on the ground, rolled up into a ball as small as his gangly limbs allowed, and stared up into the darkness of the ceiling.

No stars.

Livia would have complained. But while doing familiar things was soothing, sometimes, other times it made him miss his twin so much he felt like breaking, like shattering into a myriad tiny pieces. This had been their dream, and now it was only him.

So darkness it was, and memories.

 _Everybody is lost in space._

These nights, he missed Keith most.


End file.
